Did you know that on the day of your birth you go from being almost completely clean to covered in bacteria as you made your way oh so long ago down mothers birth canal? And that the bacteria you become infected with can significantly alter your health?
"But they aren't all bad guys. In fact, without them, we wouldn't survive very long. We need them to digest food, to produce vitamins. We use them to fight off the bad bacteria. In spite of what you're reading in the papers this week, they are more helpers than hurters."Yet scientists once speculated that the variety of microbial communities present on individuals was determined by environmental factors. Yet new research challenges this view and holds that the bacterial make up of humankind is much more homogenous than previously thought, with possibly three types of bacterial suites.
